Team Rivers wins 2018 National Scrabble championship

Team Rivers on Tuesday emerged the best state at the 2018 Asaph Zadok National Scrabble Championship in Abuja. The state dethroned Lagos state to win the title with trophy and N100, 000 prize. Lagos and Oyo came second and third best. Meanwhile, the world number two scrabble player, Moses Peter, representing Akwa Ibom, emerged the individual champion after winning 17.5 games with 1247 aggregate. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Peter, the first Nigerian to win the national championship twice, also won trophy and N150, 000. Ogedengbe Olawale came second in that category with 17.5 games and 939 aggregate as well as N100, 000. The 2015 world scrabble champion, Wellington Jighere, came third with 17 games with 453 aggregate and went home with N70, 000. Speaking after the games, Peter dedicated his victory to God, saying that hard work and the fact that he read hard and had been competing with others helped him a lot. In his remarks, the President of the Nigeria Scrabble Federation, Suleiman Gora, congratulated the winners, noting that the competition was keenly contested. Gora urged all players and state scrabble associations to do more in grassroots development of the game. Gora, who identified funding as the greatest challenge facing the sport, called on corporate bodies and stakeholders to support the game.